Abdullah Hakim Quick – Empowering The Muslims Of Today 2013
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and cultural acceptance of Islam in Canada, including the rise of Islam in the West, East, and North. They stress the importance of building a foundation and empowering individuals to participate in a positive political and community environment. Personal growth is emphasized as crucial for success, including reading and writing Arabic and practicing it for personal growth.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim
al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa sallahu wa salam ala Fatima and via in normal saline Nabina Muhammad Ali he was happy as you may know about. Is that sound okay?
Sorry,
my beloved brothers and sisters, so that was equal to Lok
Alhamdulillah
we thank Allah subhanaw taala
for the blessing of being a Muslim in these very critical times in the world, and
we have to reflect upon the fact that
our presence here is not by chance. It is by the will of Allah.
And
the last prophet Muhammad SAW Salam did not speak from himself. He spoke from above seven heavens, and we need to begin to look at his words, as a type of roadmap, a type of divine information
that came to us that we can reflect upon in these very difficult times. And one tradition the prophet SAW Selim was reported to have said, in the law has only allotted
for it to Masada kochava Mahadeva.
Were in the Malacca oma Tisa Yabloko Ma Zhu Li minha.
The prophet SAW seldom said, Verily, Allah showed me the expanses of the earth. He showed me the east and the west. And he informed me that the possessions of my oma
would reach as far as the horizons.
And so dakara salaallah alayhi salatu, salam,
Muslims reached far into the East, within 100 years, Muslims without having a large army,
cross cultural barriers, geographical barriers, environment and reach all the way to China.
And is reported that the maternal uncle of the problem so seldom sada bunnelby, what costs are the low one is buried in China.
And so that distance that far distance to the east, Muslims reached to the west.
In the time of the tablet,
by Eben nafion Rahim, Allah de la one reached all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
And he looked across the ocean,
and said that if I knew there was land across this ocean, I would take this message,
because that is the job of the Muslims, the province of sanlam said that the people who are present should take this message to all those in humanity, who are upset.
And
our presence in the far west as marketable AppStore, you know, is a phenomenon, which is growing and expanding, and has a lot of great challenges, especially with the situation today, the economic situation in the West, the geopolitical situation in the world. There are great, tremendous changes that we are going through. And I want to just
look back with you, at Canada itself, to try to understand something about the Muslims in these labs.
What we have to recognize and realize when we are dealing with Canada itself, that the word Canada is really an Iroquois word, which means it's Canada, which means a big village.
So you are literally living in a big native village. That's what this country actually means. And the Aboriginal people, the First Nations, it is reported migrated to this part of the world. Some say possibly 20,000 years ago.
They cross the Bering Straits from Russia at that time, because it was frozen. In the north, you could actually cross
the frozen north and go from Russia into Alaska
into the northern Yukon region of Canada and populate some of the people who came from Mongolia and that region there some took boats and went down into the South. They didn't necessarily go directly into the land, they went along the coastline. And then when South it's also found that people have crossed from Polynesia
from the islands in the South Pacific
Also cross over. So that is another place where human beings, you know, cross from ancient times. And amongst the First Nations, people there were those who believed in one God. And that is the way it was in all parts of the world. And I studied this I travel to different parts of the world, the Chinese, in Mandarin Chinese, their word for God is Shang, t Shang T. And Shang T. for them was the great spirits, a creator, who was like, you know, a king in a court, they will lower gods that something like the mushrikeen of Mecca, right, but they did believe in a creator, right, who initiated and began life. Similarly, when I was in Africa, in southern Africa, I found every African
nation in their own town has a way of expressing the creative, every it's unique, every single African nation. And so this concept there which insert into how we learn that Allah azza wa jal has told us, while a club boss nafi called legal mutton Rasulullah, unable to LA ha, watch Telly, but tacos. And verily we sent to every nation a messenger, that they would worship Allah and stay away from false gods. So this is the first Islam.
In one tradition, It is reported
that the province of solemn has said over 124,000 prophets and messages came to every nation every time. So when we speak about Islam in the beginning Islam in Canada,
right and Canada, in the village, it was it was here before the presence of Muslims coming from the Middle East or Asia. On the other side, it was already in the village.
Okay, similarly, some of the people worship many gods and some tribes that have what they call totem pole. And you will see some worshipping, you know, power forces from the sun and from the natural world, and that is the way it was in all parts of the world.
In 1530, for
the first contact made with the major wave of Europeans, you could say the first Europeans to come here really was the Vikings. And that was Leif Erikson, the Vikings came back, you know, many years before the 15th 16th century. And but Jacques Jacques Katya, who came in around 1534, he made contact with the MC Mac.
And when you read the writings of the MC Mac, there was a writing I read into, it was something which was came from the MC Mac grand Council of 1986. And they had recorded oral documents, oral traditions, and in that they spoke about this scan, this scan. And I was surprised to see the concept of of this scam, who they considered to be the Creator. His names and descriptions, many of them are similar to what we call a smile, hustler.
Right, the Beautiful Names of all very similar concept. And so you can see the presence of tawheed amongst the people, two books that you could read, to get some of this information. One is lies, my teacher told me is by a man named James lowen. Right, and the second is A People's History of the US by Howard Zinn. Now, these are the types of books that we need to read to, you know, next to what we get in our regular curriculums. Because what these authors have tried to do is to give you a new history of this part of the world, deconstruct the information and put it together in a new fashion, so that people can actually see in a more objective way, what actually happened in this part of the
world. So this really is what you could call early Islam in Canada.
Right, this is early Islam.
And not only the mid kmac Nation,
but there would have been other nations, also the Cherokee Nation as well. That's more down in the United States. The Cherokee has a definite proof left in their oral traditions,
Robert crane, CRA and he used to be an Advisor to the President of the United States with Richard Nixon. Robert crane was a part Cherokee. And he was able to go into the Cherokee elders meetings, and he got a lot of the old traditions, and he found that the Cherokees was
One of the most successful groups of natives in North America, they call them even
the Jews of the Indians, because of their business skills and whatnot. They used to face East when they prayed.
And crane brings in one tradition, they even say yeah, Allah before when right at the beginning of their press. And so Cherokee Nation, they have definite proof of the belief in one God, but you will find it in many nations. In this case, we have a direct for Canada itself, we have a direct proof that comes from the MC Mac nation.
Following this,
the first recorded Muslims are coming in 1871.
Okay, it's an 1871, john and Martha Simon. They were recorded in Ontario. And they came to Ontario and they were called mahoma tents. They see this name Mohamed, that is the name used in the Middle Ages by the Crusaders against the Prophet Muhammad. So seldom, they use the word Muhammad.
Right? They mean they use it in a bad way. But whenever you see that name mentioned, that is their way of saying Muslims. Okay, so these are the first two recorded on the census
documentation. And at that time, they also recorded about 17.
Muslims in Ontario. Okay, so let's go back to 1871. And also in 1854, this is an early period, James love, he is recorded also, he was born in Ontario as well. Right. And by 1971.
There are about 33,000, early settler, early settlers who came in to Canada. Now we know that the early settlers here, as well as in the United States,
and many of the European colonies, states, settler states, they had a type of apartheid system. So they ranked people by color. And they use people for different reasons based on color. So they needed people to help them open up the West.
And their own people were very sick at the time, it was a lot of plagues, and diseases and whatever. So they look toward the Muslim world.
Could they encourage and entice some people from the Muslim world to come into Canada and the United States and work as sedulous in early America. And so but the problem was for them, they would only want light skinned people. But we classify today as European or white people. But Europe itself is not a continent. Europe is not a continent. It's connected to Asia.
And so people of light complexion from you can say from Germany or the caucasoid Mountains in Russia, have actually migrated into Asia and going back and forth for centuries. In India, you have the Brahmin class. And they said the Brahmins were like audience people who migrated from the north and settled in India, and they set up a caste system. And the concept of caste bottom up is actually also race. So the darker you are, you see, the lower you are in the in the system of the caste system. Okay, that's a type of apartheid system. We use the word apartheid because that's what the South Africans call this system. That's the most recent form of discrimination based on race. In any
event here, what happens is light skinned people from the Muslim world. So they took it from the Ottoman Empire, because the Ottoman Empire included not only Syrians, Lebanese Turks, but also Albanians,
Yugoslavian severely Bosnia, right, Bosnia and people from the Ottoman territories. So they were the ones to come in. And you will see early settlers in the United States and in Canada coming from this 1971 they record 33,000 people are officially recorded. Now these statistics, usually our population is usually double the statistics. But anyhow, this is this recorded statistics 33,000 by 1971. And these settlers came into Ontario, Alberta, other parts, they worked on the railroad, they were farmers, they were had businesses and whatnot. And that's the reason why in Canada, the oldest Masjid is Masjid Rashid mosque, which is in Edmonton, Alberta. That's the oldest Masjid in Canada
right now. In the US.
United States in Cedar Rapids, also there in Iowa. It's also the oldest master there, and the same Syrian Lebanese. People who came on the wagon trains.
That's that's the reason why the oldest masjids are in the Midwest, you would think that the oldest master will be on the east coast.
But the firt the waves that were coming in, they sent them with the sedulous. Because it was, it was dangerous out there. It's a new territory, you got to be really strong. And you also have to face the native Stuart, you have to face that because many of the native tribes did not submit peace peacefully.
So they were part of the settlers that went out into that area.
And by 1938, there's your Masjid, or Rashid mosque opens in Edmonton. And I found a very interesting thing when I went to the Rashid musk last year, the ceremony
that they had for the mosque, the emcee of the ceremony was Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Remember the Quran translated a translator? us we say Yusuf Ali Quran? He was, he came from the London UK, they invited him because he had made the early translation. Right. So they had he was the emcee for the program, when they opened up a Rashid bust
by 1981.
Okay, this is another 40 plus years, Muslims are now coming in, it's recorded about 98,000.
But 98,000, officially are here in Canada. And by that time, they were skilled workers, professionals,
teachers and students, that was coming in waves of people will now coming in.
Okay, by 1991.
Okay, it jumped. It started jumping significantly now.
Okay, those are the older generation of here in the early days, you remember, a few little masjids and MSA,
you know, in your little centers that we had, there, that would have been, you know, the 1981 70s 70s 80s
that a big wave came in the 80s.
By 9120 235,000, Muslims are reported in Canada, on the official records.
And the difference was now they were not just people who were professionals or, you know, coming for agriculture or specific jobs. Now, they were coming from crisis zones.
So they were people coming in from droughts, famines, war torn situations. Were coming into Canada, Canada had one of the biggest, largest immigration policies in the world, they were allowing people to come in. And so a lot of people stopped coming in.
This number increases with the crises now increasing in the Muslim world.
Right now, you know, we actually now and it's been probably for the last 10 years or so, we have the largest refugee population in the world. Okay, so they blame us for terrorism, right. But we're terrorized more than anybody else. We have the largest refugee populations. And so by 2001
is recorded
579,740. That's about 2% of the population.
By 2006, our numbers are increasing. Now. We haven't a lot of babies to go to the Canadian hospitals, look at the babies. And you see a lot of Muslims, I don't know what the percentage is, is pretty high. In some parts of Canada, like like Toronto, it was even reaching at one point 50% of children born in the hospitals is reaching that level.
But by 2006, we reach about 70 783,702.5 by 2011. Now
940,000, right, in Toronto itself,
is recorded about 250,000. That's about 10% of the GTA. We actually believe with double this number.
We don't believe we're 250 we believe we're about 500.
Okay, but that's this is your recorded information that were actually 10% of the population of the Greater Toronto Area itself. And the projection is
if we continue to have babies like we do
And also people accepting Islam, people coming in to the country by 2030, we could be somewhere around 2.7 million if we continue to grow, which means we're going to be a significant part of this population. Now for the early information here, you can get it from the book called Muslims and Islam in Canada, right, written by Donald Hassan. Hamdani, right that that's your proof of your statistics. Anybody wants to follow it up, you can get your statistics from Muslims and Islam in Canada, okay.
Now that in the present situation that we're in,
with approximately a million Muslims or so in Canada,
and our population increasing, right, we think we're thinking that it's going to be possibly almost three times the size. By 2030, we're having a growth rate problem.
one statistic is even saying Canadian Muslims have a higher birth rate than regular society, we have 2.1. And the society has 1.6. Okay, so we're rising, rising, rising, rising, rising,
about 60% of the Muslims in the whole country reside in Ontario.
And we're having a gross problem. Okay. And I can recall,
having accepted Islam in 1970, and being part of that early community there.
And then I went overseas, I came back, we still only had two, only three machine major machines in the city.
By the early 80s, some small muscles were around. But in terms of major machines, we only had a couple. Now we expand it in the past 15 years or so unbelievably, as of maybe 120, Masters in Toronto area. And you know, and it's expensive. And so, this has given us some serious challenges, especially with the younger generation.
Because the older generation, to a great extent, the personality is their
people speak their language people have come from somewhere, you know who you are. But the younger generation is caught up in changing society, with Canadian Canada being a mixed society. So you'll have a Spanish speaking person, a Greek speaking person, an Arabic speaking person, or to speak in person. And the young people who speak those languages, when they speak English is the same
as Canadian English.
Body language, a lot of it is the same
habits, cultural traits, a lot of it is the same.
Some people call it the mcdonaldization of the world, right, where McDonald's is now the international food.
So people are wearing the same shoes and jeans, you know, the same type of clothing, you know, like the same sports heroes, you know, a lot of their feelings, you know, very similar, and it's it's crossing cultural barriers. And that in itself is a good thing. In some ways. The problem is that sometimes when you get into this global culture, right, it makes your own natural family culture seem a little strange. So that's causing a problem. You know, with the younger generation. It's what I would call an identity crisis. And I was talking with one Muslim sister, and she said, when she was going to the school, and you know, there weren't many Muslims in the school at the time. And she
felt isolated. And they looked at her, she looked like, this was in the United States, which is more pressure than Canada, but very similar, but she looked like a Spanish person. So she used to tell people, she's Spanish. He's like Puerto Rican, or, you know, from Nicaragua or something. Instead of telling them that she's from Pakistan,
because then they can identify, oh, you're Puerto Rican? Your Spanish?
Yes. And now you got people that back at you, right? You can survive
right? Nobody's gonna make fun of your culture. Because a lot of Spanish speaking peoples you live in Florida, right? So a lot of Spanish speaking people in Florida.
Right, but how what are you going to say if you tell your the people in Florida that you're from Lebanon,
right or you're from Algeria.
Some of them don't even know where it is on the map.
So you get our cultural identity. It's almost like a type of schizophrenia,
where you've got sort of like two personalities, got one personality for the mosque, and the community, another personality for school and for friends. Okay, so below, while below is, you know, in the Moskin with everybody belongs a nice, friendly guy when he goes to school, he's Billy,
right below changed.
Right? Ali is
asiyah is Asia.
They start changing.
You know, and so that's like a identity problem. So that's one of the issues that we have to face.
Also,
racism,
racism, discrimination, out of this identity thing comes discrimination, because racism is one part of racism, where it's just your race. Okay, somebody may call you names. But there's another part of racism, which is what they call institutionalized racism.
And that is where, because of your race or your color, you're not going to get a job.
Or you're not going to
be able to move into a house. Right? Just because of the way you look.
That's, that's the worst part of racism that's institutionalized. Okay. So that's a problem that Muslim community faces. And this has now blossomed into Islamophobia.
Islamophobia, as we know, is the fear of
it's the fear of Islam. If you look like a Muslim, got a name like a Muslim, it you know, it's a fear. Some people when they, when they were faced with this problem of discrimination and hatred, racism, they said, we're going to assimilate.
And what does that mean? That means you try to become exactly like, your master, or like the major race that's above you.
And that's where the identity changes, like we said, Mohammed is more.
Right? So when it gives it, he goes to work, and he said, Just call me Mo.
Now, sometimes, you know, maybe that is a good way because maybe they can't pronounce your name, right. But they can pronounce a lot of names that Greek names are hard to pronounce, to write. Other names, you know, a bit hard to pronounce. But the Muslim will say just call me Mo.
You know, and assimilate. But assimilation is not going to work.
Because now because of Islamophobia. They'll attack you, even if you've got a suit on.
Once they know who you are, you can't hide.
And there's a story of a brother in the UK.
He went to get a job with a British Corporation.
And the British, of course, are very crafty.
They studied us very well. They colonized us. They know us better than the Canadians.
And so the British man said, okay, you want to get this job in my Corporation. And you know, our Brother Mohammed, he put on his gray pants, his blue vest in here. jacket is red tie part of this here. He was ready. He's coming to the corporation, right?
The British man said, Ah, what's your name? He said Mo. He looked at the thing. And he saw his name is Mohammed. Right? So he knows he's a Muslim, the British man that said to him,
do you pray?
Are you going to ask for time off during the day to pray?
And most said, No, not me.
Not me. I'm not going to pray. It's okay. I'll just work. I want to say okay, British man, Dan said, Do you want time off on Friday for Juma?
And most said, No, not me.
I will be loyalty accompany and I'll stay in work. So the British man said, Come back tomorrow. The next day when Moe came back, the British men said, I'm not going to give you your job. Because if you're disloyal to your religion, you're going to be disloyal to me. You understand this? He knew that he had to face because he knows as well, right? He knew that we need to take time for Juma and if this guy is gonna turn against his own religion,
right then he's a treacherous he's not dependable person right?
Because he you know, he can't even be honest with his own faith. How is he going to be honest and loyal to the company? You see how the British man thought.
So really, Mo becomes what they call, you know, I mean, he lost the dunya and the next life, both.
So it's better to just represent yourself properly.
State what you believe. Right? Don't be ashamed of yourself. Come out of yourself.
Okay, but some people when do they didn't assimilate, they isolate. That's another reaction to Islamophobia isolate,
they go into Masjid and they close the door and they say, only our group is safe. All the rest of the world is going to hellfire.
Where the only true Muslims
are like, we were talking today, the person said, I will I'm not going to speak English. I'm so proud of myself, because I never spoke a word of English in my life.
And I refuse to speak English. Right? Usually what that is, is an inferiority complex, he's afraid to speak English, he's afraid to come out to the public. It's not because he's really protecting us. But he thinks if he isolates himself, he's safe. But you know, the old fable of an ostrich that buries its head in the sand. Right, the ostrich puts his head in the sand, but the rest of it is sticking up.
Right? So he thinks he's hiding and you know, in the sand, because his head's under the ground, but his body showing So similarly, isolations not going to work, especially with digital technology, right? Because they can watch you inside the machine anyway, and hear everything as long as you got an electronic, you know, piece of with a chip inside of it, you know, they're gonna follow you anyway.
And, you know, there's nothing for us to be afraid of. Anyway, we're transparent people.
So why are we afraid? So isolation is not going to work.
And this is the crisis now in the Muslim world. And we spoke about, you know, this crisis somewhat in the last few days, you know, that we have great wealth and poverty, we have large armies, but we still feel humiliated and defeated. You know, we have intellectuals, and many times scholars argue over minor points trivia, right. And this creates a type of frustration.
And so we want to be proactive,
and to look at some solutions to the problem.
And be proactive.
Because
assimilation, not gonna work, isolation, not gonna work.
Another tactic desperate confrontation. That's not gonna work.
Okay, what we need is Islamic revival. We need to revive Islam in a living way, a dynamic form of Islam that we can use right now.
Right for our communities that become relevant. And we can use this law right now in this world. So I want to make some recommendations, there's 10 recommendations want to make. One is an increase in taqwa. The bottom line, in a lot of the problems that Muslim face is their relationship with Allah subhanaw taala.
And once that becomes weak, everything else becomes weak, your salon becomes weak. Your unity becomes weak. Your connection with the court and becomes weak. Once your your relationship with Allah azza wa jal, the more consciousness of God that we have, right is the better we're able to implement and practice our Islam,
you know, in this world. So that is a very important point. And you can increase your top line, you know, by
reading the Quran in a different way
that we read it with touch week, and then we think about it, right? Think about the verses, right? That you read,
get a Tafseer have it explained. And then practice it. Follow its commands, right? It's three parts. So you read it nicely. You think about what's in it, and then you practice
that's different than some people will just read it. Some people just read it and don't even know what they're reading.
Okay, our relationship has got to change. It's better that we read a small amount of the poor and and we understand it, that we read a lot of it and we have no understanding
okay to have proper knowledge of Islam. And that means that everybody needs to begin to learn classical Arabic language. The closer you get to full, classical Arabic is the
Closer you're getting to the wide the revelation.
So everybody needs to spend time getting familiar with Arabic. Right? Get yourself some Arabic books, right? Get into a class, be around Arabic speaking people ask them to address you sometimes in Arabic.
Right learn how to function. That's how a child functions, right? Children learn languages faster than their adults, their parents. You see somebody goes move into an area, the people are speaking the language. And the parents are reading the grammar and, you know, whatever and the child outside playing.
So the child just after a while the child is walking in and is talking.
He's talking and the parents are stuck on the ground.
Because it's total immersion.
It's total immersion.
is like an Arabic When you say
he is big.
In English, we say, you know, he is big, she is big. They are big. We change it. In Arabic, they say who are Kabir.
Which in English would be he big. It sounds like you're talking Jamaican patois, right? him big as patois. Like it's colloquial. He big. She big. They big. Right? It sounds like a colloquial, but that's what the Arabs don't use is in the middle, right?
So the little kid, he's in the streets. He just starts talking he big she big.
The parents are learning Joomla is Mia tada and haba and you know, whatever. And they say you know Nick forgetting what this Joomla is me affair Leah. And this and that, you know, like all these rules. The kid just said he big
who are Kabir.
And so that grammar rule, the child has internalized the grammar. They might not be able to explain it to you, but they say it.
So if you're around people speaking Arabic or you get into a total immersion course,
right, then you can start picking it up and then go to the Arab world. spend a month or two months be around people speaking Arabic, right? by memorizing Quran and studying Tafseer you also got to learn vocabularies.
Right and then you can get closer and closer.
Also with the school or the basic parts of our religion, understanding the core and properly the Hadith Fiqh, study these subjects then our Islam is based on you know, solid foundations, not culture.
Because culture is different. When I accepted Islam, I thought all halau meat had chili in it. I thought Holloman hot food,
because every time I ate halau pepper.
Then I met some Bosnians and other people, they have no pepper in it.
And I realized that halaal is how you sacrificing the animal, the absence of pork and alcohol. That's hella the chili or no chili that's your culture.
Or when people think that chili is the dean, you understand this point when they think the chili is the dean
and not the sacrifice of the animal now you got a problem?
Because some Muslims don't like chili
it's almost like you get two religions right? And that's why sometimes Muslims appear to be very different because they're following their culture
did not follow the principles of the religion. So that's why we need a proper knowledge of Islam. These are some points for challenges these are to to revive Islam, leadership, how are we going to do this? How are we going to get out of this present problem? Three,
proper Islamic character.
more emphasis needs to be placed on Islamic character. Many people put emphasis on the clothes
or what you say.
Some people say change your name change the name in some places like half the religion
no character is the keeper. prophets are seldom said in many traditions in the mob with Julio Tell me Mama cauliflower, fairly I was sent to complete the best in character.
That's why I was sent
character. So it's not just pray, why do you pray?
What's the benefits of prayer? You see? That's the key thing now character.
Having not scandalizing people not talking against people, you know having a good mannerism about you. That is how Islam spread.
So we need to emphasize this with our children. In the same way we emphasize learning how to make
We'll go and learning how to pray. What not we need to emphasize a flock, carrot.
Number three, number four, courage and patience.
It will take a lot of shujaa courage and subak patience is necessary. As I was saying its patients with good times as well as Saba Aafia,
which means in good times, we give back
the blessings that we got for obedience to Allah subhanaw taala.
Number five, wisdom and balance, balance, wisdom, putting things in the proper place. Wisdom is a key point now in the revival of Islam, because not how much core and that you memorize, well how many deeds that you studied? It's how you apply it.
That's what the key thing is we see some of our brothers and sisters in the Muslim world, they quickly took in all this Islam, and when they apply it, it becomes extreme.
It's too much on the people.
So the wisdom of application of Islam because when Islam was first revealed, Allah subhanaw taala for 13 years did not Institute major
compulsory acts on Muslims. When they were in Mecca, they used to only pray two times a day.
There's no five slots.
Okay, there's no faster than Ramadan.
There's no pans account.
There was no Hutch.
Right for those 13 years. It's only near the end when the Islamic Raj that the five slots come in. But it's not until they reach Medina.
And then it's instituted.
And the five slots come in the rules of fasting the rules of the cat the rules of Hajj, but the first 13 years was character building. So when they got the knowledge, when they got this information now the laws of Islam, they could apply the laws properly. You see, so wisdom and balance is a very important quality today in applying our Deen.
Number six is a knowledge of the environment. And when I say the environment, I don't just mean global warming.
I mean, the environment like what are the trends in society, right? Some most of the problem with Muslims is sometimes you have some people who know Islam very well, but they don't know what's happening in society.
You have other people who know the society very well, but they don't understand this loan.
And many of them represent us on television and whatnot. And they say really weird things. They don't even know what they're talking about.
So we need people who have a strong foundation in the deen. And at the same time, they know that what's happening in the world.
So they can interpret Islam to the world. Right? to practice it today
is very key point.
And this means knowledge of the environment also means like what we what we studied a little bit earlier, who were the first Muslims in Canada?
What did these Muslims go through,
you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
many problems that you're facing now and you're mastered, or you're going through, we've already went through this in Toronto.
So why reinvent the wheel,
you can take a step and go, you know, check the communities who went through these phases. So you don't have to fall into the same problem.
This is why I say it's really important for the community to develop a type of trust fund.
Right and people get a lawyer, right? Create a trust fund, you know, in the masjids name.
And people put their walk off, they put their money toward the trust.
Put your money to the church and that trust fund can pay for people, for somebody to come to be a regular teacher in your community.
The Imam does not have to be yoked. The person who needs a lot is not necessarily the man or the Amir, the one who gives you the football and does your counseling and you know is dynamic person. So like a sea CEO, right. It's like a CEO of the Islamic Center. That's what you need. You need a dynamic CEO of the Islamic Center.
For leading so that you can get a half if you have a half it may be in your community.
And the CEO himself obviously will have Islamic knowledge or you'll lead sometimes, but you need a CEO of the master. So the word is not democracy, we have this problem in our mind. When we think of Imam right, everybody thinks it's like your mom, Romania, you know, something, your mom is like some, you know, holy religious figure with all these qualities, no, you need a CEO of the masjid,
of Islamic center.
And that CEO, his job
is to, you know, study the community, study the problems and develop dynamic programs, programs for the youth programs for the women, counseling,
Dawa, and outreach.
Right, organize things, get the Treasury book in an order, just like the CEO of a corporation, right.
But you need to pay the CEO, you can't expect somebody to come volunteer their time to do this. Because people have to pay rent,
they have to eat food, right? So but if the community develops a type of type of Trust Fund, and money is given to the trust fund, and from the trust fund, you pay the CEO.
See, that's one model, I've given you a possible model to do this.
And you will come out of the problem that many Islamic centers faced in other places, because without a proper SEO for your community, right, you could only go so far,
you only gonna go so far. Right? If you get a CEO, a proper director, you call the CEO and director of the mosque, right? With a proper director, then your your whole program will change,
your organization will change. People's relationship with the master will change. Because now the people realize they're part of an association.
Right? They're an active member of an association. Right? And there's this, there's checks and balances, right? And the CEO that needs to be some setup in your constitutions and whatever, if the CEO doesn't do his job, or is out of control, you can get another
see. So these things you need to work out try to work out with people who may have gone through this kind of thing before. But the crisis not only here, it's in Toronto, as well. And many of them masters have this type of thing.
So um, knowledge of the environment, you know, what happened in the past to Muslims here. And in Canada. Next is shorter,
shorter, and that is consultation than everything we do. We consult each other. There's got to be consultation and our families, consultation and our Islamic centers.
Right, between the leadership everybody's to have town meetings, town hall meetings, discuss affairs, right? come to a consensus on things, get people involved. Right. Islam is a Gema. It's a group process of them say yeah, de la mala Jamaat the hand of Allah is with the Jamaat, the United organization.
Right, so that that shorter is a very important concept. And, you know, cooperation and operational unity that I don't believe is such a problem with here in Thunder Bay.
Because you don't have like Toronto, we have so many machines, so many communities, right? So we need to cooperate with each other and operational unity. That means that we least we work together, the master may be slightly different, maybe a different school of thought, or a different linguistic group. But each master needs to sit in shored up with the rest.
Right? operational unity, right. That's the term terminology that I'm using.
Next is a positive empowering approach. empowerment.
empowering people. Positive, right, not negative dynamic.
Right. That's the approach you know that that we need. Now in these times, it is not easy because a lot of against us, but positive. So if we read more of the edits of the last days, right, eventually victory will come to the Muslims. It's coming. It's going to be a storming period before it comes. But it's it is it is destined to eventually come.
And we need to keep this in mind and focus on how we empower the youth. We empower women in
Power people in our communities This is crucial
Okay, and number 10, outreach,
Tao right reaching out to society, we have to have active outreach programs that is providing Islamic solutions to real problems of society
right provide Islamic solutions help people you know in the society itself.
So, these are some points in terms of you know practical solutions to the problems or some direction that we need to take to implement you know, and to be able to you know, deal with the problems that we are facing. Okay. So we end in peace upon 11 will be humbucker duchateau en la Ilaha. Enter the stock through hula tuber Lake Wanaka da Juana. hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah Eve about a cattle
direct. for Canada itself. We have a direct proof that comes from the MC Mac nations. Following this,
the first recorded Muslims are coming in 1871.
Okay, it's an 1871, john and Martha Simon. They were recorded in Ontario. And they came to Ontario and they were called mahoma tents that you see this name Mohamed. That is the name used in the Middle Ages by the Crusaders against the Prophet Muhammad. So seldom they use the word Mohamed,
right. They mean they use it in a bad way. But whenever you see that name mentioned, that is their way of saying Muslims. Okay, so these are the first two recorded on the census
documentation. And at that time, they also recorded about 17.
Muslims in Ontario. So that go back to 1871. And also in 1854, this is an early period, James love. He is recorded also, he was born in Ontario as well. Right. And by 1971,
there were about 33,000 early settlers, early settlers who came in to Canada. Now we know that the early settlers here, as well as in the United States,
and many of the European colonies states, subtlest states, they had a type of apartheid system. So they ranked people by color. And they use people for different reasons based on color. So they needed people to help them open up the West.
And their own people were very sick at the time, it was a lot of plagues, and diseases and whatever. So they look toward the Muslim world.
Could they encourage and entice some people from the Muslim world to come into Canada and the United States and work as sedulous in early America. And so but the problem was for them, they would only want light skinned people, what we classify today as European or white people, but Europe itself is not a continent. Europe is not a continent. It's connected to Asia.
And so people of light complexion from you can say from Germany or the caucasoid Mountains in Russia, have actually migrated into Asia and going back and forth for centuries. In India, you have the Brahmin class. And they said the Brahmins were like Adi and people who migrated from the north and settled in India, and they set up a caste system. And the concept of caste bottom up is actually also race. So the darker you are, you see, the lower you are in the in the system of the caste system. Okay, that's a type of apartheid system. We use the word apartheid because that's what the South Africans call this system. That's the most recent form of discrimination based on race. In any
event here, what happens is light skinned people from the Muslim world. So they took it from the Ottoman Empire, because the Ottoman Empire included not only Syrians, Lebanese Turks, but also Albanians,
Yugoslavian severely Bosnia, right, Bosnia and people from the Ottoman territories. So they were the ones to come in. And you will see early settlers in the United States and in Canada coming from this 1971 they record 33,000 people are officially recorded. Now these statistics, usually our population is usually double the statistics. But anyhow, this is this recorded statistics.
33,000 by 1971 and these settlers came into Ontario, Alberta. Other parts, they worked on the railroad. They were farmers, they would add businesses and whatnot. And that's the reason why in Canada, the oldest Masjid is Masjid Rashid Musk, which is in Edmonton, Alberta. That's the oldest machine in Canada right now in the United States, in Cedar Rapids. Also there in Iowa, is also the oldest master there, and the same Syrian Lebanese. People who came on the wagon trains.
That's that's the reason why the oldest masjids are in the Midwest, you would think that the oldest master will be on the east coast.
But the firt the waves that were coming in, they sent them with sedulous because it was it was dangerous out there. It's a new territory, you've got to be really strong. And you also have to face the native Stuart, you have to face that because many of the native tribes did not submit peace peacefully.
So they were part of the settlers that went out into that area.
And by 1938, there's your Masjid or Rashid mosque opens in Edmonton. And I found a very interesting thing when I went to the Rashid mosque last year, the ceremony
that they had for the mosque, the emcee of the ceremony was Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Remember the quarter that Quran translated a translator? Use we say Yusuf Ali Quran? He was, he came from the London UK, they invited him because he had made the early translation. Right. So they and he was the emcee for the program. When they opened up a Rashid was
by 1981.
Okay, this is another 40 plus years,
Muslims are now coming in, it's recorded about 98,000.
About 98,000, officially are here in Canada. And by that time, there were skilled workers, professionals,
teachers and students, that was coming in waves of people will now coming in.
Okay, by 1991.
Okay, it jumped. It started jumping significantly now.
Okay, those are the older generation of here in the early days, you remember, a few little masjids and MSA,
you know, in your little centers that we had, there, that would have been, you know, the 1981 70s 70s 80s.
Then a big wave came in the 80s.
By 9120 235,000, Muslims are reported in Canada, on the official records.
And the difference was now they were not just people who were professionals or, you know, coming for agriculture or specific jobs. Now, they were coming from crisis zones.
So there were people coming in from droughts, famines, war torn situations. We're coming into Canada, Canada had one of the biggest, largest immigration policies in the world, they were allowing people to come in. And so a lot of people start coming in
this number increases with the crises now increasing in the Muslim world.
Right now, you know, we actually now and it's been probably for the last 10 years or so, we have the largest refugee population in the world. Okay, so they blame us for terrorism, right. But we're terrorized more than anybody else. We have the largest refugee populations. And so by 2001,
there's recorded
579,740. That's about 2% of the population.
By 2006, our numbers are increasing. Now. We haven't a lot of babies to go to the Canadian hospitals. Look at the babies. And you see a lot of Muslims I don't know what the percentage is, is pretty high. In some parts of Canada, like like Toronto, it was even reached at one point 50% of children born in the hospitals is reaching that level.
But by 2006, we reach about 70 783,702.5 by 2011. Now
940,000 right, in Toronto itself
is recorded about 200
50,000 that's about 10% of the GTA, we actually believe with double this number.
We don't believe we're 250. We believe we're about 500.
Okay, but that's this is your recorded information that we're actually 10% of the population of the Greater Toronto Area itself. And the projection is
if we continue to have babies like we do,
and also people accepting Islam, people coming in to the country by 2030, we could be somewhere around 2.7 million if we continue to grow, which means we're going to be a significant part of this population. Now, for the early information here, you can get it from the book called Muslims and Islam and Canada, right, written by Donald Hassan have Danny, right that that's your proof of your statistics. Anybody wants to follow it up, you can get your statistics from Muslims and Islam in Canada, okay.
Now that in the present situation that we're in,
with approximately a million Muslims, or so in Canada,
and our population increasing, right, we think we're thinking that it's going to be possibly almost three times the size. By 2030, we're having a growth rate problem.
one statistic is even saying Canadian Muslims have a higher birth rate than regular society, we have 2.1. And the society has 1.6. Okay, so we're rising, rising, rising, rising,
about 60% of the Muslims in the whole country reside in Ontario.
And we're having a gross problem. Okay. And I can recall,
having accepted Islam in 1970, and being part of that early community there.
And then I went overseas, I came back, we still only had two, only three machines, major machines in the city,
by the early 80s, some small masalas were around. But in terms of major mustards, we only had a couple. Now we expand it in the past 15 years or so unbelievably, so maybe 120 matches in Toronto area. And you know, and it's expanded. And so, this has given us some serious challenges, especially with the younger generation.
Because the older generation, to a great extent, the personality is there.
People speak their language people have come from somewhere, you know who you are. But the younger generation is caught up in changing society, with Canadian Canada being a mixed society. So you have a Spanish speaking person, a Greek speaking person, an Arabic speaking person, or to speaking person. And the young people who speak those languages, when they speak English is the same
as Canadian English.
Body language, a lot of it is the same
habits, cultural traits, a lot of it is the same.
Some people call it the mcdonaldization of the world, right, where McDonald's is now the international food.
So people are wearing the same shoes and jeans, you know, the same type of clothing, you know, like the same sports heroes, you know, a lot of diff feelings, you know, very similar, and it's it's crossing cultural barriers. And that in itself is a good thing. In some ways. The problem is that sometimes when you get into this global culture, right, it makes your own natural family culture seem a little strange. So that's causing a problem. You know, with the younger generation. It's what I would call an identity crisis. And I was talking with one Muslim sister, and she said, when she was going to the school, and you know, there weren't many Muslims in the school at the time, and she
felt isolated. And they looked at her. She looked like, this was in the United States, which is more pressure than Canada, but very similar, but she looked like a Spanish person. So she used to tell people she Spanish. He's like Puerto Rican, though, you know, from Nicaragua, something instead of telling them that she's from Pakistan?
Because then they can identify, oh, you're Puerto Rican. You're Spanish.
So now you got people that back at you, right? You can survive.
Right? Nobody's gonna make fun of your culture. Because a lot of Spanish speaking peoples you live in Florida, right? So a lot of Spanish people speaking people in Florida.
Right? But how what are you going to say if you tell your the people in Florida that you're from Lebanon,
right? Or you're from Algeria, some of them don't even know where it is on the map.
So you get our cultural identity. It's almost like a type of schizophrenia,
where you've got sort of like two personalities, got one personality for the mosque, and the community, another personality for school and for friends. Okay, so below, while below is, you know, in the mosque and with everybody belongs a nice, friendly guy when he goes to school, he's Billy's right below changed.
Right? Ali is out.
Asya is Asia.
They start changing.
You know, so that's like a identity problem. So that's one of the issues that we have to face.
Also,
racism,
racism, discrimination, out of this identity thing comes discrimination, because racism is one part of racism, where it's just your race. Okay, somebody may call you names. But there's another part of racism, which is what they call institutionalized racism.
And that is where because of your race or your color, you're not going to get a job.
Or you're not gonna
be able to move into a house. Right? Just because of the way you look.
That's, that's the worst part of racist. That's institutionalized. Okay, so that's a problem that Muslim community faces. And this has now blossomed into Islamophobia.
Islamophobia, as we know, is the fear of
it's the fear of Islam. If you look like a Muslim, got a name like a Muslim, it you know, it's a fear. Some people when they, when they were faced with this problem of discrimination and hatred, racism, they said, we're gonna assimilate.
And what does that mean? That means you try to become exactly like, your master, or like the major race that's above you.
And that's where the identity changes, like we said, Mohammed is Mo,
right? So when he gives it, he goes to work. And he said, Just call me Mo.
Now, sometimes, you know, maybe that is a good way because maybe they can't pronounce your name, right. But they can pronounce a lot of names that Greek names are hard to pronounce, too, right. Other names, you know, are hard to pronounce. But the Muslim will say just call me Mo.
You know, and assimilate. But assimilation is not going to work.
Because now because of Islamophobia. They'll attack you, even if you've got a suit on.
Once they know who you are, you can't hide.
And there was a story of a brother in the UK.
He went to get a job with a British Corporation.
And the British, of course, are very crafty.
They studied us very well. They colonized us. They know us better than the Canadians.
And so the British man said, okay, you want to get this job in my Corporation. And, you know, our Brother Mohammed, he put on his gray pants, his blue vest in his jacket, this red tie part of this here, he was ready, is coming to the corporation, right?
The British man said, What's your name? He said Mo. He looked at the thing and he saw his name is Muhammad, right? So he knows he's a Muslim, the British man that said to him,
do you pray?
Are you going to ask for time off during the day to pray?
And most said, No, not me.
Not me. I'm not going to pray. It's okay. I'll just work. I won't take. Okay. British man then said, Do you want time off on Friday for Juma?
And most said, No, not me.
I will be loyalty a company and I'll stay in work. So the British man said come back tomorrow. The next day when Moe came back, the British man said I'm not going to give you your job.
Because if you're disloyal to your religion, you're going to be disloyal to me. You understand this? He knew that he had to praise because he knows as well, right? He knew that we need to take time for Juma. And if this guy is going to turn against his own religion,
right, then he's a treacherous. He's not dependable person, right?
Because he can't even be honest with his own faith. How is he going to be honest and loyal to the company? He's the other British man thought.
So really, Mo becomes what they call, you know, I mean, he lost the dunya and the next life, both.
So it's better to just represent yourself properly.
State what you believe. Right? Don't be ashamed of yourself. Come out of yourself.
Okay, but some people when do they didn't assimilate, they isolate. That's another reaction to Islamophobia. Isolate,
they go into Masjid and they close the door and they say, only our group is safe. All the rest of the world is going to hellfire.
Without the only true Muslims
are like we were talking today the person said I will. I'm not going to speak English. I'm so proud of myself, because I never spoke a word of English in my life.
And I refuse to speak English. Right? Usually what that is, is an inferiority complex. He's afraid to speak English. He's afraid to come out to the public. It's not because he's really protecting us. But he thinks if he isolates himself, he's safe. But you know, the old fable of an ostrich that buries its head in the sand. Right, the Austrians put his head in the sand, but the rest of it is sticking up.
Right? So he thinks he's hiding and you know, in the sand, because his head's under the ground. But his body showing So similarly, isolations not gonna work, especially with digital technology, right? Because they can watch you inside the machine anyway, and hear everything as long as you got an electronic, you know, piece of with a chip inside of it, you know, they're gonna follow you anyway.
And, you know, there's nothing for us to be afraid of. Anyway, we're transparent people.
So why are we afraid? So isolation is not gonna work.
And this is the crisis now and with the Muslim world, and we spoke about, you know, this crisis somewhat in the last few days, you know, that we have great wealth and poverty, we have large armies, but we still feel humiliated and defeated. You know, we have intellectuals, and many times our scholars argue over minor points trivia, right. And this creates a type of frustration.
And so we want to be proactive,
and to look at some solutions to the problem.
And be proactive.
Because
a simulation, not gonna work, isolation, not gonna work.
Another tactic desperate confrontation. That's not gonna work.
Okay, what we need is Islamic revival. We need to revive Islam in a living way, a dynamic form of Islam, that we can use right now.
Right for our communities to become relevant. And we can use this law right now in this world. So I want to make some recommendations. There's 10 recommendations I want to make to you. One is an increase in taqwa. The bottom line in a lot of the problems that Muslim face is their relationship with Allah subhanaw taala.
And once that becomes weak, everything else becomes weak, your slot becomes weak. Your unity becomes weak. Your connection with the court and becomes weak. Once your your relationship with Allah azza wa jal, the more consciousness of God that we have, right is the better we're able to implement and practice our Islam,
you know, in this world, so that is a very important point. And you can increase your top line, you know, by
reading the Quran in a different way
that we read it with touch wheat, and then we think about it. Right? Think about the verses, right that you read,
get a Tafseer have it explained, and then practice it. Follow its commands, right? It's three parts. So you read it nicely. You think about what's in it, and then you practice.
That's different than some people just read it. Some people just read it and don't even know what they read.
Okay, our relationship has got to change. It's better that we read a small amount of the poor and and we understand it, that we read a lot of it. And we have no understanding, okay? To a proper knowledge of Islam. And that means that everybody needs to begin to learn classical Arabic language. The closer you get to full classical Arabic is the closer you're getting to the wide the revelation.
So everybody needs to spend time getting familiar with Arabic, right? Get yourself some Arabic books, right? Get into a class, be around Arabic speaking people ask them to address you sometimes in Arabic.
Right learn how to function. That's how a child functions, right? Children learn languages faster than their adults, their parents. You see somebody called move into an area, the people are speaking the language. And the parents are reading the grammar and, you know, whatever, and the child outside playing.
So the child just after a while the child is walking in and is talking.
He's talking and the parents are stuck on the ground.
Because it's total immersion.
It's total immersion, right?
It's like an Arabic When you say
he is big.
In English, we say you know he is big. She is big. They are big. We change it. In Arabic, they say who are Kabir.
Which in English would be he big. It sounds like you're talking Jamaican patois, right? Then big is this patois, like it's colloquial, he big. She big day big. Right? It sounds like a colloquial, but that's what the Arabs don't use is in the middle, right?
So the little kid, he's in the streets. He just starts talking he big she big.
The parents are learning Joomla is Mia tada and haba and you know, whatever. And they say he'll never forget what this Joomla is me affair Leah. And this and that, you know, like all these rules. The kid just said he big.
Who are Kabir.
And so that grammar rule, the child has internalized the grammar rule. They might not be able to explain it to you, but they say it.
So if you're around people speaking Arabic or you get into a total immersion course,
right, then you can start picking it up and then go to the Arab world. spend a month or two months be around people speaking Arabic, right? by memorizing Quran and studying Tafseer you're also going to learn vocabularies
right and then you can get closer and closer.
Also with the school or the basic parts of our religion, understanding the court and properly the Hadith Fiqh, study these subjects then our Islam is based on you know, a solid foundations not culture.
Because culture is different. When I accepted Islam, I thought all halau meat had chili in it. I thought Holloman hot food,
because every time I hate halau pepper.
Then I met some Bosnians and other people, they have no pepper in it.
And I realized that halaal is how you sacrificing the animal, the absence of pork and alcohol. That's hella the chili or no chili desert culture.
When people think that chili is the dean, you understand this point when they think the chili is the dean
and not the sacrifice of the animal now you got a problem?
Because some Muslims don't like chili
it's almost like you get to religions, right? And that's why sometimes Muslims appear to be very different because they're following their culture.
They're not following the principles of the religion. So that's why we need a proper knowledge of Islam. These are some points for challenges these are to revive Islam leadership, how are we going to do this? How are we going to get out of this present problem? Three
proper Islamic character
more emphasis needs to be placed on Islamic character. Many people put emphasis on the clothes
or what you say
some people say change your name change your name in some places like half the religion
no character is the keeper. prophets are some of them said in many traditions in the mob who is to tell me my macadam Allah verily I was sent to complete the best in character.
That's why I was sent
character
So it's not just pray, why do you pray?
What's the benefits of prayer? You see, that's the key thing now character,
having not scandalizing people not talking against people, you know, having a good mannerism about you. That is how Islam spread.
So we need to emphasize this with our children. In the same way we emphasize learning how to make wuzhou and learning how to pray, what not we need to emphasize a flock character.
Number three, number four, courage and patience.
You will take a lot of shujaa courage and sub patience is necessary. As I was saying, It's patience with good times as well. A subdural afia
which means in good times, we give back
the blessings that we got for obedience to Allah subhanaw taala.
Number five, wisdom and balance, balance, wisdom, putting things in the proper place. Wisdom is a key point now in the revival of Islam, because not how much core and that you memorize, well, how many how deeds that you studied? It's how you apply it.
That's what the key thing is, we see some of our brothers and sisters in the Muslim world, they quickly took in all this Islam, and when they apply it, it becomes extreme.
It's too much on the people.
So the wisdom of application of Islam, because when Islam was first revealed, Allah subhanaw taala for 13 years did not Institute major
compulsory acts on Muslims. When they were in Mecca. They used to only pray two times a day.
There's no five slots.
Okay, there's no faster than Ramadan.
There's no pagans account.
There was no Hutch.
Right for those 13 years. It's only near the end when the Islamic Mirage that the five slots come in. But it's not until they reach Medina.
And then it's instituted.
And the five slots come in the rules of fasting the rules of the cat the rules of Hajj, but the first 13 years was character building. So when they got the knowledge, when they got this information now the laws of Islam, they could apply the laws properly. You see, so wisdom and balance is a very important quality today in applying our Deen.
Number six is the knowledge of the environment. And when I say the environment, I don't just mean global warming.
I mean, the environment like what are the trends in society, right? Some most of the problem with Muslims is sometimes you have some people who know Islam very well, but they don't know what's happening in society.
You have other people who know the society very well, but they don't understand this loan.
And many of them represent us on television and whatnot. And, and they say really weird things. They don't even know what they're talking about. So we need people who have a strong foundation in the deen. And at the same time, they know that what's happening in the world.
So they can interpret Islam to the world, right? To practice it today.
That's very key point.
And this means knowledge of the environment also means like what we what we studied a little bit earlier, who were the first Muslims in Canada?
What did these Muslims go through?
You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
many problems that you're facing now and you're mastered, or you're going through, we've already went through this in Toronto.
So why reinvent the wheel.
You can take a step and go, you know, check the communities who went through these phases. So you don't have to fall into the same problem.
This is why I say it's really important for the community to develop a type of trust fund.
Right and people get a lawyer, right? Create a trust fund, you know, in the mustards name
and people put their walk off, they put their money toward the trust.
Put your money towards you, and that trust fund can pay for people, for somebody to come to be a regular teacher.
in your community,
the Imam does not have to be yoked, the person who needs a lot is not necessarily the man or the woman, the one who gives you the football and does your counseling and you know, is dynamic person. So like a C CEO, right? It's like a CEO of the Islamic Center. That's what you need. You need a dynamic CEO of the Islamic Center
for leading so that you can get a half if you have a half it may be in your community.
And the CEO himself obviously will have Islamic knowledge or your lead sometimes, but you need a CEO of the master. So the word is not democracy, we have this problem in our mind. When we think of demand, right? Everybody thinks it's like Imam Khomeini, or, you know, something, your mom is like some, you know, holy religious figure with all these qualities, no, you need a CEO of the master
of Islamic center.
And that CEO, his job
is to, you know, study the community, study the problems and develop dynamic programs, programs for the youth programs for the women, counseling,
Dawa, and outreach.
Right, organize things, get the Treasury book in order,
just like the CEO of a corporation, right.
But you need to pay the CEO, you can't expect somebody to come volunteer their time to do this. Because people have to pay rent,
they have to eat food, right? So but if the community develops a type of type of Trust Fund, and money is given to the trust fund, and from the trust fund, you pay the CEO.
See, that's one model, I've given you a possible model to do this.
And you will come out of the problem that many Islamic centers faced in other places, because without a proper SEO for your community, right, you could only go so far.
You only gonna go so far. Right? If you get a CEO, a proper director, you call the CEO, a director of the mosque, right? With a proper director, then your your whole program will change. Your organization will change. People's relationship with the master will change. Because now the people realize they're part of an association.
Right? They're an active member of an association. Right? And this, there's checks and balances, right? And the CEO that needs to be some setup in your constitutions and whatever, that if the CEO doesn't do his job, right or is out of control, you can get another
see, so these things you need to work out try to work out with people who may have gone through this kind of thing before, but it's a crisis not only here in Toronto, as well, and many of them masters have this type of thing.
So um, knowledge of the environment, you know, what happened in the past to Muslims here and in Canada. Next is Shura.
Sure, and that is consultation than everything we do. We consult each other. There's got to be consultation and our families, consultation and our Islamic centers.
right between the leadership, everybody's got to have town meetings, town hall meetings, discuss affairs, right, come to a consensus on things, get people involved. Right, Islam is a jamaa. It's a group process all of them said yet de la madhyama, the hand of Allah is with the Jamaat, the United organization.
Right, so that That sure is a very important concept. And, you know, cooperation and operational unity that I don't believe is such a problem with here in Thunder Bay.
Because you don't have like Toronto, we have so many much it's so many communities. Right? So we need to cooperate with each other and operational unity. That means that we least we work together. The master may be slightly different, maybe a different school of thought, or a different linguistic group. But each bastard needs to sit in shored up with the rest.
Right? operational unity, right. That's the term terminology that I'm using.
Next is a positive empowering approach. empowerment.
empowering people. Positive, right, not negative dynamic.
Right. That's the approach you know that there
We need now a nice time but it's not easy because a lot against us, but positive is if we read more of the dates of the last days, right, eventually victory will come to the Muslims, it's coming. It's going to be a storming period before it comes. But it's it is it is destined to eventually come
and we need to keep this in mind and focus on how we empower the youth, we empower women, empower people in our communities, this is crucial.
And number 10, outreach,
Tao right reaching out to society, we have to have active outreach programs that is providing Islamic solutions to real problems of society
right provide Islamic solutions help people you know in the society itself.
So, these are some points in terms of you know, practical solutions to the problems or some direction that we need to take to implement you know, and to be able to you know, deal with the problems that we are facing, okay. So we end in peace upon 11 will be humbucker duchateau en la Ilaha. illa Anta the stocks ruhuna tubular Lake waka da Juana hamdulillah Bill alameen wa Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh